Meta's AI Pivot: Why the Company is Moving Beyond Open Source with New "Avocado" Model

Meta's AI Pivot: Why the Company is Moving Beyond Open Source with New "Avocado" Model

Meta's once-confident bet on open-source AI is quietly unraveling. After CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent 2024 championing the company's Llama models as the future of accessible AI, internal sources reveal a dramatic strategy shift that could signal Meta's retreat from its open-source philosophy.

The social media giant is now developing "Avocado," a proprietary successor to Llama that represents a complete reversal of Meta's previous approach. Originally expected by year-end, the model has been pushed to Q1 2026 as the company grapples with performance issues and mounting pressure from AI rivals.

The $14.3 Billion Talent Grab

Meta's desperation to catch up became evident with its massive $14.3 billion acquisition of Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang and his top researchers in June. Wang now leads the secretive TBD Lab, where Avocado is being developed in near-total isolation from Meta's traditional teams.

The hiring spree didn't stop there. Former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and ChatGPT co-creator Shengjia Zhao joined Meta's new Superintelligence Labs, bringing Silicon Valley's cutting-edge AI development methods to a company historically focused on social media advertising.

Key Challenges Emerge

• Cultural Clash: The new AI leadership operates separately from Meta's traditional open communication style, creating internal tensions
• Increased Pressure: 70-hour workweeks have become standard as teams rush to compete with Google's Gemini 3 and OpenAI's GPT-5 updates
• Strategic Confusion: KeyBanc analysts noted that Meta "faces more questions around investment levels and ROI" after entering 2025 as an AI winner

The shift away from open source was partly triggered by Chinese AI lab DeepSeek's R1 model, which incorporated Llama's architecture without contributing back to Meta's development efforts.

Meta's AI product launches have also struggled. The company's Vibes video generation platform, rushed to market in September, is widely viewed as inferior to OpenAI's Sora 2 and has significantly fewer downloads.

Despite spending between $70-72 billion on AI infrastructure in 2025, Meta's stock has underperformed the broader tech sector. The company's pivot represents one of the biggest strategic gambles in Silicon Valley, as Zuckerberg abandons the open-source approach that once differentiated Meta from competitors.

Whether Avocado can deliver the breakthrough Meta needs remains uncertain, but the company's willingness to spend billions and completely restructure its AI approach signals just how high the stakes have become in the race for AI dominance.